


You Sucked My Brain Out

by kittensmctavish



Series: Buzzfeed Soulmates AU [1]
Category: Buzzfeed Ladylike (Web Series), Buzzfeed The Try Guys (Web Series), Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Feels, F/M, Gen, M/M, Other, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 07:56:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14052438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittensmctavish/pseuds/kittensmctavish
Summary: You never expected to come to Buzzfeed and find your goddamn soulmate. But you had. You’d found your soulmate. And there was no way in hell you two would ever be together.





	You Sucked My Brain Out

**Author's Note:**

> so...the title comes from a lyric from an Ani Difranco song entitled “Dilate”. The full lyric is “And when I say ‘you sucked my brain out’/The English translation/Is “I am in love with you/And it is no fun”.
> 
> (I’ve got ideas for follow-ups to this focusing on other characters but depending on the reception to this fic/if everyone thinks it sucks, this will likely be a oneshot.)

You came to work for Buzzfeed expecting to work. To make videos. That was it.

You never expected to come to Buzzfeed and find your goddamn soulmate.

But you had.

You glance down at the mark on your ankle, its changed hue, and think…goddamn it.

You’d found your soulmate. And there was no way in hell you two would ever be together.

***

Soulmarks start the color of birthmarks. Basically the color of a freckle – a spot a few shades darker than one’s skin tone.

Never the SHAPE of a birthmark (that is, a nondescript blob of sorts). Always the distinct outline of something, in nice thick discernible lines.

But there are only so many shapes of so many things in the world. How does one know which person with the same shape as theirs is THEIRS? Their soulmate, that is?

Color changes. When the soulmate is met, the color change goes into effect. But even then, it can’t just be meeting them for the first time, walking into the room, BAM, color change.

The soulmarks have to be seen in person. You have to see your soulmate’s matching mark with your own eyes to learn what bond you have with that person. And they the same with you. For all the pieces to fall into place, or for everything to shatter apart.

Different colors, different bonds.

***

Most soulmarks turn a rather pretty red flecked with gold. This indicates a romantic bond.

Ned wears his soulmark like a badge of fucking honor and shows it off whenever he possibly can. (Is this one of the reasons there are so many videos in which the Try Guys show their butts? The world may never know.) Ariel has to roll her eyes at her husband’s antics sometimes, but the array of jewelry she has that complements the small soccer ball on the left side of her neck is impressive.

Shane and Sara have matching coffee thermoses on their wrists (Sara’s right, Shane’s left). And in real life. (Which may or may not have been inspired by their soulmarks, there will never be a concrete answer to that.)

It ends up being astoundingly fitting that Steven and Andrew’s marks are slices of pizza, given the first episode of “Worth It” they did together. Though they didn’t learn they were each other’s soulmates until sometime after the Cocktail episode, apparently. (One of the “Never Have I Ever’s”, according to Adam and told as a secret under penalty of death, was “never have I ever shown my soulmark to a friend”. And drink doing what it does to the brain, Andrew just HAD to roll up the sleeve of his shirt and Steven just HAD to roll up the cuff of his jeans…and boom.) (There were reasons the third season felt so much like a series of dates. It essentially was.)

***

Some people tend to keep their soulmarks to themselves as much as possible, for one reason or another. Outside of immediate family, they don’t want people to know.

There are a wide variety of concealers from makeup companies that are made especially for soulmarks. Heavier coverage, lasts all day, waterproof, smudgeproof, pigment levels, etc.

Buzzfeed has done many an episode on soulmark concealers (drugstore brand, cheap vs. expensive, safe for kids?). Anyone at Buzzfeed – soulmate found or not – can try.

Depending on the person, the soulmark can be blurred out for privacy’s sake. (Eugene’s soulmark is ALWAYS blurred out whenever he acquiesces to one of these videos. The only people who know it’s a hairbrush are those at the office. And no one’s about to tell because it’s not their business and they wouldn’t do that to Eugene.)

Some people don’t really give a fuck who knows.

“If I had a goddamn dollar for every time I’ve covered this fuckin’ thing up with another goddamn concealer in a goddamn video,” Kelsey says to you one happy hour, pointing at the wine glass mark just over her right breast, “I wouldn’t have to work here.”

***

Some soul bonds are familial.

A child meets their new baby sibling for the first time. They point delightedly at the same picture that’s on their own skin. Both turn a deep but vibrant green.

Most commonly, twins will share a soul bond, but it isn’t always between siblings. It can be between cousins. Mother and child, father and child. Aunts, uncles, even in-laws.

Buzzfeed’s done a video or two on misconceptions people can have about familial soul bonds. Misconceptions that stem sometimes from the belief that the concept of soulmates is “inherently a romantic one” (which is baloney).

Reminders that romantic love is not the only love.

Your favorite moment from any of these videos features a little girl, two or three, cooing over her baby brother, the small green fish on his hand clear in the light, as he reaches towards the matching green fish on his sister’s wrist as he beams at her.

“He makes my heart happy,” the girl says. The baby boy emits a gurgling coo, as if saying the same about her.

***

It’s not uncommon to have more than one soulmate, though there’s more than one meaning to this.

Not just two people can have the same soulmark and that be the only match. There are cases of three. Sometimes four. Rarely more than five.

And it’s not uncommon for one person to have more than one soulmark. In fact, there are quite a number of people who have two soulmarks. Never for the same type of bond, but it happens.

***

Some soul bonds are platonic.

Keith shares a romantic soulmark with Becky (gold-tinged red pairs of glasses on the both of them). But he’s also got a brilliant blue piece of fried chicken on his left bicep that ties him to Chris. (Chickenwatch always was an inevitability.)

One would expect that Ryan and Shane’s shared marks would be ghosts, right? Because of that show they make. Wrong. Big, fluffy blue kernels of popcorn adorn Ryan’s right knee and the crook of Shane’s right elbow.

You could actually lose count of the number of platonic bonds people at Buzzfeed have with each other. It’s a little ridiculous (and yet, it really isn’t).

***

It’s not out of the question for soulmarks to change at some point.

Not…out of the blue while one is in the middle of a very happy soul bond. The change often occurs if one has had a soulmate that has passed away.

This most often happens if the soulmates in question were a very young person paired with a very old person. The old passes away, the young grows, will wake up one day to find the mark changed in shape and color.

It’s either a relief or a punch to the gut. But not as severe a punch as before.

***

If one’s soulmark turns black, it means one’s soulmate has died.

Unsurprisingly, most elderly people have black soulmarks. But younger people bear them as well.

And unlike all other color changes, one doesn’t ever have to see their soulmate’s mark for it to fade to black. It will happen upon the death of the other.

Buzzfeed’s done at least one video interviewing people whose soulmarks turned black unexpectedly, and how they coped with it.

Quinta had been there, shakily taking about a grandparent. How she was aware of how lucky she was to have known them and at least had some time, and how grateful she was every day. There wasn’t a day she woke up and it didn’t ache a little…but it ached a little less every day.

It’s the pain of not knowing, is the most common response. Never meeting the person they shared their soul with, not knowing what happened to them, no closure of any sorts.

Jen’s soulmark used to be an airplane, she’d recounted. She has vague memories of staring at the top of her left hand a lot. It had turned black when she was six or seven. She remembers her mom crying for her, but she didn’t understand why. Not fully, until she was older. Perhaps it was because she was so young when it happened that she doesn’t mourn her former soulmate as much as she feels like she should…and she feels guilt over that sometimes.

Another common response is the fear that one day, they’ll wake up and find a new mark, to replace the old one. That room in their soul has been made for a new soul. It’s the fear of the same thing happening again, soulmates dying without having never met them.

When Jen woke up one morning at fourteen or fifteen to find the airplane gone from her hand and a paintbrush on her wrist instead, her mom had cried again for her. Happier tears, it seemed. Another chance. Jen doesn’t know how to feel about it. So she keeps the soul mark covered as much as she possibly can so she can just ignore it. Maybe if she keeps it covered all the time, she’ll never have to have known what it’s like to lose two soulmates in one lifetime. If it happens like that again.

***

Some people don’t have a soul mark at all. For any type of bond.

That is not to say they’re soulless, or that they’re not capable of love. And it’s not a rarity. It just happens.

You’ve seen more than one comment from far too many people on how they’ve studied every inch of Zach’s “tiny fuckable body” for a soulmark and are dumbfounded that he doesn’t seem to have one on any bare inch of him. “he’s aDORABLE, he deSERVES LOVE DAMMIT. #not gonna stop me from shipping zagene”

Ryan’s girlfriend, Helen, doesn’t have a soul mark. Ryan does (apart from the popcorn he shares with Shane). A small ghost on his hip. “If I meet them, I meet them, if I don’t, I don’t.” That’s all he’s ever publicly said about it and all he wishes to. His love for Helen speaks for itself.

No one at Buzzfeed is quite sure if Adam has a soul mark or not. Lots of people on the internet headcanon Adam’s soul mark as a cinnamon roll, if he does have one. (You’ve told him this before. It makes him smile.)

***

"Well, I’m hoping I don’t fall in love with you…"

You’re sitting in your bed, laptop next to you at Tom Waits’ voice trickles from the speakers. You glance down at your ankle. At your soul mark. The little flecks of gold caught in the red of it glint in the dim light of your apartment.

Just…fuck.

You honestly can’t even bring yourself to cry about it. That’s how heavy the sadness is.

If you drank, you’d be drinking. But alcohol has always been disgusting to you. So you sit and sigh and listen to the same sad song on repeat. Long after you’re sick of the song.

It’s late. You should probably be asleep. Instead you’re awake and drowning yourself in your own self-pity and glaring at your stupid fucking mark and wishing you didn’t have it because there’s just. No. Way.

You don’t drink. But when it gets late at night, you tend to overshare, as though you were drunk.

So fuck it.

You reach for your phone and open Instagram, sitting up and crossing your legs. You open the Video function and press record as Tom Waits begins the song all over again.

"Well, I hope that I don’t fall in love with you...‘cause fallin’ in love just makes me blue…"

“Tom Waits gets it,” you hear yourself saying, voice low and lifeless. As you move your thumb to stop recording, a sigh escapes you.

You lounge back against the pillow nestled against the wall, choose a filter (one of those grainy ones that makes your apartment look darker and sadder than it already is). In your peripheral vision, your soul mark stretches with your ankle.

You type a caption: “When you know you don’t have a goddamn chance with your soulmate, regardless of the color of your mark. There’s no way they’ll love you back.”

You post it before you can think too much about if you’d regret it or not.

It’s late at night. Everyone’s probably out and about, drinking, having a good time, generally being more social and fun than your sad ass.

That said, the support from your coworkers/friends starts rolling in…

***

@kelseydarragh BOOOOOOO come drinkin with me

@adamjbianchi :(

@saraerubin so not true. you’re an incredible, lovely, incredibly lovely, lovably incredible person.

@shanemadej what sara said.

@keithhabs May I offer you some fried chicken in these trying times?

@nedfulmer @keithhabs Really? (Also, I’m certain the last thing you want is soulmate advice from a married guy but if you ever need to stop by Casa de Fulmer for some cheering up, I know a @beaniedoodle who is the best dog and an expert in cheering-up skills. @arielmfulmer can attest to this.)

@jenrigatoni I’d say soulmates are bullshit but…they’re really not. If you know who they are, tell them. You have that chance; don’t waste it. (And if it doesn’t pan out, I’ll be your soulmate.)

@quintab @jenrigatoni Couldn’t have said it better myself. A short amount of time with your soulmate is better than none. Worth the risk.

@stevenkwlim How could your soulmate not fall in love with you at first sight?! You’re as pretty as a penny! (Andrew says: Ten pennies, at least.)

@ryanbergara Hey. I know you haven’t been with Buzzfeed for very long, but it doesn’t take that a long time to learn you’re a very special, wonderful person who is absolutely worth loving. And if your soulmate can’t see that, they’re an idiot.

@eugeneleeyang get a dog. they’re better than people. or soulmates.

@korndiddy @eugeneleeyang are you implying soulmates aren’t people? (also, that is depressing tom waits. you need that video of cookie monster lipsyncing “god’s away on business”. that should help.)

***

You should feel better. You don’t.

(Although you do look up that video Zach suggested. It…exists.)

"Now it’s closing time…the music’s fading out…"

Time to get ready for bed, you finally decide. You walk over to your dresser to fetch a pair of fuzzy socks so your feet don’t freeze during the night. You walk back over to your bed to put the socks on. As your bring your foot up, you stare at your ankle.

At the mark of a ghost on your ankle.

You glance back over at your phone. At Ryan’s comment.

“You’re a very special, wonderful person who is absolutely worth loving. And if your soulmate can’t see that, they’re an idiot.”

You blink. The screen blurs.

He’s not an idiot. But he has Helen.

And soulmate or not, you’re not going to risk ruining their happiness for a chance at your own.

You pull the sock over your ankle and shut your phone off as the last lyric in the song fills the air and resonates in your heart:

"And I think that I just fell in love with you…"

**Author's Note:**

> ...so if anyone wants further soulmark adventures, lemme know. (Do Zach and/or Adam have soulmarks? Will reader ever tell Ryan/will Ryan ever find out? Who knows, man...)
> 
> Feedback welcome and appreciated.


End file.
